Page 37 of Them Bones

“Tall? Messy dark hair? Cheekbones for days and eyes you could drown in?”

Holly crossed her arms.

“Thought so. There’s only one guy in this town that could make this big of an impression on a girl in under ten minutes while blindly, singularly focused on aHawton.And that’s Shane.”

“How do you know him?” Marianne breathed.

She shrugged but puffed up her chest at the attention. “He works at the bakery, with me.”

A flurry of questions.

Holly felt like curdled milk.

Later, when Sabrina went to leave, she put her hand on Holly’s arm, a softer look on her face.

“Sometimes I wonder what it might be like, to have his attention. Like,reallyhave it.” She frowned. “Laney is a lucky girl. But maybe… so are we. I don’t think he’s… good, Holly. I think he wants to be, but he isn’t.” Then she squeezed Holly’s arm and left.

SHANE

A few days away from Cary had done Shane a world of good. He hadn’t even been aware of how physically tense he was in that house all the time until he finally uncurled a little on the third day at Jerry’s place, his body so unused to being relaxed that his limbs kind of felt like spaghetti.

Even the distance from Laney had been… he couldn’t saygood, exactly. Not when an entire hemisphere of his brain seemed to be fanatically dedicated to thinking about herat all times. But it hadn’t been bad, either.

He felt more awkward about the situation now that he had somewhere else to stay. She was a life raft he hadn’t been expecting, and he’d fused himself to her with everything he had. Jerry had been right. He needed to de-intensify. And he needed to separate his relationship with Laney from his basic needs.

Shane wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve Jerry, but the man had given him a car, a job, and a warm place to stay. By the end of that week, he shocked the shit out of himself when he worked up the balls to ask Jerry if he could stay for more than a few days.

“I can take a pay cut, or pay rent, or work for free, or – ”

But Jerry had just beamed at him and clapped him on his uninjured shoulder. “I’m proudda you, kid. I’m bein’ honest, I thought you’d only make it one night without seeing her.”

Shane frowned. Strictly speaking, he hadn’t gonea single nightwithout seeing her. He drove Dustin to and from school just so he could get a glimpse of her every day. And (it made him cringe a little, to think about it) he usually stayed for a few hours, parked slightly down the street out of eyeshot of the garage or front windows. He wasn’t sure why, he couldn’t see anything inside from there, but it made him feel better, even if he supposed it wastechnicallystalking.

And that’s where he was at 4:55pm that Tuesday – parked down the road, engine running to keep himself warm, flipping through his little book of CDs to test out the new CD player he’d installed in the truck – when a pink-faced Laney appeared at the passenger-side window, opened the door, and slid in.

All thoughts he had aboutdistance being good for himwent right out the window as his heart punched a hole through his chest with the same force he’d put his fist through the glass with at the high school.

“Hi,” she breathed.

Hi,he said back silently, not sure his voice was working.

She smiled, and he was so relieved that she wasn’t angry at him - that they weren’t angry at each other, anymore - that he visibly sagged in his seat. She was looking at his cast with pursed lips.

“You need to find a better use for your fist than punching shit,” she said.

“Like what?” he scoffed. She arched an eyebrow at him suggestively, a poignant silence blanketing them like snow. He felt his entire face go beet red and – to his discomfort – his dick harden against his jeans.

“Don’t know why you’re embarrassed about it,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, everyone does it – ”

Shane clamped his good hand over her mouth. “Can younottalk about that, please?”

But they were too close. It was an enclosed space, the smell of her roaring in his head, his skin buzzing with the unexpected contact. She narrowed her eyes at him and tried to speak, but he clamped his hand harder over her mouth, his lips parting involuntarily at the feel of her.

Not yet not yet not yethis brain was chanting.

But then she opened her mouth against his palm and nipped him, and any semblance of self-control evaporated.

His mouth crashed down on hers like a wrecking ball, and he groaned with satisfaction at the moan she unleashed. He sucked her tongue into his mouth, and she arched her back against him, gripping his shoulders and shoving him sideways into his seat. She scrambled onto his lap and his hands found her hips – awkwardly, with his cast – gripping her tight and pulling her close.

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